En Route
by akabetty
Summary: Gemma Shepard and Kaidan Alenko, the infamous pre-Ilos incident. A one-shot based around the Renegade Shenko romance. Just a one-shot full of angst.


_Originally a drabble for Gemma Shepard, the RP_ [ gemmashepard on tumblr ]

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He wants her to know he doesn't think she made the wrong call. That taking over the ship and gunning away from the Citadel's oppressive arms was the _right_ call – the very solution to their impossible mission. She thinks she's becoming disconnected. She can see his lips moving, the nervous way he shifts and fidgets and she can tell he wants her. He's not mocking or pandering, but genuine. He thinks she chose him over Ash because she loves him.

But he is just an officer, like her. He was more valuable and regulation dictated his life was more important than one left behind. If she were a real and feeling person, beyond the idle fancies of youth that was lost before it had began, she might even mourn the loss of the young woman. Instead, she feels nothing. No regret, no distaste, just the cold crown of _duty preserved_ adorning her brow.

"I just … Shepard, I want you to know that it's been an honor serving under you." He salutes her, wholeheartedly, career-bred through and through. But he desires to provide a more carnal comfort to assuage whatever perceived guilt he thinks she possesses. She is not compassionate or sentimental, not for fleeting romance or for thrill. Those days passed her by in New York, a city she craves and hates in equal measure.

"You haven't served under me yet," she hears herself respond, the old, practiced words come of their own volition, the same that had placated Curt and all the empty affairs notched to her bedpost.

He smiles, elated that she's not pointing a gun at him or laughing him out of the room. They had a camaraderie, sure - but his advances were those she had rebuffed before. Gemma had no desire for companionship but she's also aware that she is attractive, despite the scars and disposition and that she projects an image that's larger than life. Those were tools beyond her impressive, casted shadow. Her rank, her looks, her history - they were not chips on her shoulders, they were weapons more powerful than any gun and a set she knew how to use well.

But the words, though unbidden, come anyway and Gemma was never one to leave something unfinished. Perhaps they would die the moment their boots touched down, perhaps this was their last night alive - perhaps that was justification enough. She feels a hot rush under her skin that makes her fingertips tingle and her eyes soften just so. She can feel his heart beating through the inches between them and his handsome, woodsmoke eyes speak of need and desire to come unbound.

"That's true, you got me there." A light chuckle and his already gruff voice drops an octave or two, "I would certainly like to have that opportunity." A lax smile forms over his chapped and scarred lips and he draws an arm slowly around her waist. _Now or never_, he's thinking, _seize my chance or be tossed out an airlock_. Gemma knows this dance so well. It's one she's played countless times before. Sex, like war, is a game to her, all a matter of lining up your pieces and taking your time to study the field and your opponent. But there's something different this time around. A small spark at his touch, the longing in his eyes and the doped grin plastered across his face are conspiring to make air catch in her lungs.

He kisses her. The rush, the moment, the way his hands linger and their warmth and one is moving to her neck, over the gouged mark she'll bear forever. He holds her to him, demanding more and more. She will give it because she's been consumed, lost in a dance that isn't as familiar as she recalls. It comes over her in waves, senses unbalance and the room shifts into a hard spin to port. But he's still there and he's still got her and they fall together, unabashed in their exploration.

There is no cold chill of terror that locks her knees and dissolves rational thought. She doesn't see Finch's gnarled yellow teeth or Curt's tattooed fist square in her face. Instead it's only this man, her subordinate officer. The one who has a family and a name. She runs through the scattering details of her mind, trying to grab for one or six that would give insight, help her to know him. She owes him that. But his touch is desperate, insistent and she needs this just as much as he does.

He speaks her name through teeth and lips and tongue and she can taste it. The name that's a lie, that was stolen such a long and perilous time ago. She's got her legs locked around his waist and she's not even sure if she cares that this is so wrong, so against everything she holds in such high regard. He speaks it like a mantra, as though he needs to remember who she is, because like her, he knows this could be it.

There's no sound but their breathing, they are fucking to forget some _where_, some _place_, to fill the gaping wounds that riddle their bodies. Parts lost in worlds so near and far apart. His hands stick to her skin, running the length of her legs, her ribs, her neck. She is plied around his broad shoulders and in his ear, fingers splayed through his hair and she's abandoned all thought. Whatever it is, this mess, this upside down and fierce haze that swarms them, pushing together and away is something she'll keep.

When it's over she knows she's made a mistake. One coated in sweat and painted with a sated smile. She wears one too, the sharp edge of madness dulled in an instance of primitive need. She'll chide herself later, throw herself wildly into the fight.

Her head is back with an arm draped over her eyes. She can feel her brow tense, her lips pull into a thin line. She knows she has a streak in her, dark and viscous and it fills a space that can't remember what it held before. She doesn't want to show him that. She doesn't - _didn't _want to show him anything at all. Her inches were stolen, dropped in a murky gutter to be forgotten and disintegrate. She shouldn't have given what she couldn't.


End file.
